


Doubts Don't Deter Detectives III (b)

by amindamazed (hophophop)



Series: Doubts Don't Deter Detectives [4]
Category: Mary Russell - Laurie R. King, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/amindamazed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2015 Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts in non-Elementary universes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubts Don't Deter Detectives III (b)

**The Little Things**  
Word Count: 365  
Rating: G  
Warning: None.  
Summary: a going away present  
[practice prompt 1](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1260426.html)

* * *

"I know the truly valuable gifts you're taking to Oxford come from Holmes and what he's taught you these past few years, but I wanted you to have a little something from me as well." Uncle John beamed as he passed over his present, so proud and happy for me I felt ashamed of the times I'd judged him for his weaknesses instead of his strengths.

I turned the little box over in my hands, feeling the contents slip heavily from side to side. Metal, I'd wager, though not entirely; one end seemed to be lighter than the other. I couldn't hear any moving parts, but...

"Oh, go on and open it Mary, you're as bad as he is sometimes. It's a present, not an exercise in deduction." I had to smile at the accuracy of that observation and the comedic exasperation with which it was delivered, and slipped a finger under the flap to open it up. Inside the plain cardboard was an articulated device of brass and glass that revealed itself to be a portable magnifier, somewhat the worse for wear. The metal was scratched, although the lens appeared sound: The creases in my palm jumped out like Martian canals, and the last remaining crumb from Mrs Hudson's celebratory high tea like a lost boulder on the scoured dry riverbed of the table.

"And not a very good present; more sentimental than anything else. The man _I_ called Uncle John gave it to me when I went to university. He was a friend of my parents, a hobbyist naturalist who wanted to be an explorer and worked as a bank clerk instead. But on summer weekends when he came to visit, he led my brother and me on excursions into the woods and marshes and taught us what he knew about reading the natural world. I hope you won't forget to pull your head out of your books now and then to stretch your limbs and breathe fresh air and pause to examine some of the tiny details of the world, not for the practical or arcane use to which they might be put but merely for the simple joy of knowing them."


End file.
